


Don't take them off, put your hands on me

by Chaosandgunpowder



Series: Carved in gold and ice (Jamilton mob!verse) [7]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alex is a manic lawyer, Alternate Universe - Mob, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drug Use, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, They're both twisted little bastards, Thomas is a mob boss, nothing but fluff, or the closest Alex ever gets to that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:41:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27619889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaosandgunpowder/pseuds/Chaosandgunpowder
Summary: Thomas’s hands manage to pull him apart and hold him together at the same time, light him up even as they ground him and now that he knows that, he needs it, more than he needs almost anything.[Jamilton Mob!verse ft. mob-boss Thomas and manic-lawyer Alex] in which Alex finally gets some inspiration.
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/Thomas Jefferson
Series: Carved in gold and ice (Jamilton mob!verse) [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1930312
Comments: 21
Kudos: 118





	Don't take them off, put your hands on me

**Author's Note:**

> [For timeline purposes this is set after _forty-eight hours pass_ and at the same time as the end of _I know, you know_ ]

Alex likes his hands.

They’re the only thing he inherited from his father that he does like, even though they’re on the delicate side, and Jamie used to say he had _prissy little girl hands_ until those _little_ fists broke his brother’s spiteful fucking nose and tore out a full chunk of his hair, bloody and ragged and then he’d not had another filthy word to say about them until he’d left just like their father, after which he’d not had another filthy word to say to Alex at all, anyway.

They might be a little small but Alex at least knows how to use them. They’re the first weapons he’d learned to wield in his own defense, before his switchblade, even before his words; just his hands and his mouth because that was all he’d had to fight with and once after one of the traders that came to his mother’s store had looked at him in a way that made him want to back away, all of ten, skinny and argumentative and willful and asked her if she wanted to pay for her goods with _something else_ she’d shaken Alex, serious-faced and urgent-voiced, said _anyone ever touches you without your permission, you do whatever you need. You don’t hesitate and you don’t stop until you feel safe, tu me comprends, mon petit feu_ and he’d taken her to heart. Three days later that same man had tried grabbing at Alex as he’d been taking out the trash and instead of crying or freezing Alex had kicked and bucked and clawed dirty nails over one of his eyes and screamed and screamed and _screamed_ until he’d been let go in shock, until his mother had come running, until he was hoarse and bloody-handed, and he supposes he’s never quite grown out of that instinct, to let that all burst out of him if he feels like he needs to. Especially now.

Sometimes he thinks he’d maybe be okay if he lost his feet, or legs, or even his eyes but he thinks he’d probably swiftly throw himself out of a window without his hands. They’re his tools; nimble and dexterous and manage to take the thoughts straight from his mind and turn them into something tangible and fluent, even when his mouth sometimes can’t keep from being the main outlet for all that harsh, bursting energy instead of cleverly-articulated words and so he winds up using them almost interchangeably.

Sometimes they feel like the same thing anyway; fingers an extension of his voice and he speaks with them almost as much, with or without a pen, can’t keep his impatience or irritation or enthusiasm bleeding out of them, gesturing wild and frantic, and maybe that’s why he’s never really liked touching people casually, even before Thomas. He’d always much preferred to be pushed up against someone, knee-to-knee in a bar booth or shoulder-to-shoulder, hip-to-hip on a dance floor than put his hands on someone he wasn’t about to fuck or fight; too tactile and intimate and purposeful to be comfortable, even before the feel of other people’s hands on his body became too-heavy and too-greasy and too-warm with very few exceptions. 

Washington’s hands have never made him feel like that, at least, right from the first time he’d clapped Alex on the shoulder out of fucking nowhere, scared the shit out of him and derailed his righteous anger through sheer confusion alone. He doesn’t touch Alex all that often, never has, that line of awkward stoicism rarely crossed, but when he does it’s firm and authoritative and his hands are the closest thing to a safety net Alex had ever felt until Thomas.

John’s always been too-touchy; hugs and arms slung over shoulders that Alex has spent his entire twenties edging out from under and his hands are soft and clean because even though he likes to posture about setting himself aside from his father he’s never done a hard day’s work in his entire fucking life.

Eliza’s hands are smooth and her fingers are a little plump; he remembers from when they used to be entwined with his, walking between he and Hercules after an evening of drinks and dancing, as she swung both sets of clasped hands between the two of them, just like she swung her affections between the two of them before she’d eventually realized that Alex wasn’t actually holding her hand - that she was holding his - and had let go of him completely.

Lafayette’s hands are calloused and worn in much the same places as Alex’s and he’s always liked that about him; gripping pens and paintbrushes too-tight and for too-long like his enthusiasm is written on his skin just like Alex’s. He’s never been hot on _art_ but Alex likes passion, he likes when people are _into_ things, even when he can’t follow along with it because without that passion what the fuck is the point of _anything_. It’s the same reason he can never stay too pissed at Angelica. _Hers_ are slim with viciously perfect manicured nails and despite her fancy upbringing she points her fingers with those nails almost as much as she does with her words and when she comes at him she’s so fucking _intense_ about it he can’t help but appreciate the fervor.

Even if he does have to shit all over it, because if she got her way Thomas’s hands would be cold and stiff before they were free of steel bars and that’s just fucking unacceptable.

Thomas’s hands are contradictory, an amazing, intoxicating paradox that Alex can’t ever get enough of; cool and callous even as his insides burn, tender and reverent even as they’re coated in evidence of his brutality and they calm Alex’s raging fire even as they stoke it. Thomas’s hands remind him where he’s meant to be when he gets lost, press him down and hold him still and safe and secure when he can’t stop moving and open him up easily and steadily, make him scream until he can’t remember why he was even fucking moving in the first place.

They're careful and controlled in a way that Alex just _isn't_ , that steady patience bleeding into him with every pass of his palms like it's possible for Alex to imbibe that stability through sheer osmosis but it's not, not for any length of time. It's only when Thomas's hand curls around his neck or strokes along his back that the restlessness inside him seems to properly abate, even as it sharpens into something stronger, harder, a balm and a fuel all at once.

Thomas’s hands manage to pull him apart and hold him together at the same time, light him up even as they ground him and now that he knows that, he needs it, more than he needs almost anything.

Maybe he _could_ survive without his own hands, but he knows for sure now that he couldn’t live without Thomas’s. 

~~~

“I love your hands,” Alex says, as soon as Thomas answers the phone, because it seems important that he know this. “They’re better than everybody else’s hands.”

“Of course they are,” Thomas replies with surety, and he sounds amused, if a little confused. “Not that I don’t appreciate the compliment darlin’ but is that why you called?”

“Yes,” Alex says, because _so the fuck what if it is_ , and then shakes his head quickly in case he hangs up, because it actually isn’t. “No. Are you busy?” he asks, even though he knows Thomas has had at least _something_ going on tonight - he was out at Carter’s and Alex didn’t ask much more than that, just made plans of his own instead - but he doesn’t really give a shit if he’s interrupting. Thomas is his before he’s theirs and so if Alex wants to call then Alex can fucking call.

“Just finished,” Thomas says, as the noise in the background gets quieter. If he hadn’t been finished Alex knows he is now, and he feels that little thrill of superiority in his chest and in his gut he always gets when Thomas prioritizes him, even though it’s not really a surprise anymore. “I thought _you_ were busy. Early for you to be home.”

“Is it?” Alex shrugs, can’t really tell how long it’s been, blinks heavily at his hand as he taps his knee with his dictaphone. “Some snotty motherfucker was wandering around trying to push pills except he was full of shit because they were fucking _downers_ , like it’s not cheeky as fuck asking people to fucking _pay_ to be _roofied_ for fucks sake, so Laf and I fucking _told_ him so-”

Except _telling him so_ had devolved into the indignant buzz of fight in his veins and the sting of split knuckles before he’d been removed - except then he _hadn’t_ been, and hadn’t that been fucking _weird_ , security yanking him around by the collar until they’d seen his face, put him down and apologized, all _wasn’t our intention, Mister Hamilton_ and the guy he'd been in the middle of tearing a strip off of had suddenly backed away at the mention of his name, palms raised because he _didn’t want no trouble, I'll stop_. It’s the first time that’s really happened, that someone has treated him _alone_ how they’d treat _Thomas_ and he doesn’t know how to feel about it. He wants Thomas shown the respect that he deserves, that he _demands_ , and he can’t lie the power rush had been immense, that same dark, exciting amusement as when Thomas is throwing his influence around, the deference, the flash-grenade thrill of wondering how much he could possibly get away with before they’d finally step in, whether they even _would_ -

But he’s never liked feeling like he’s sponging and it had soured his evening somewhat. Coasting on his boyfriend’s notoriety, on Thomas’s name alone feels somehow worse than taking his gifts or letting him replace all of Alex's clothes like he keeps threatening to do the moment Alex finally packs his last few boxes and moves in, like Alex doesn’t fully expect his wardrobe to suspiciously and miraculously go up in flames within the first month, though he’s sort of accepted that one as an inevitability, nomatter how much of a fit he’ll pitch over the principle when it does happen, because it’ll be worth it to wake up every day next to _Thomas_ -

“I’ll remember that,” Thomas says, and he sounds like he’s grinning. Alex abruptly realizes he’s got no control over his rambling. He blinks at the flashing light on his recorder, wonders exactly how much shit he’s mumbling. Well that will be interesting to listen back to, at least. Thomas snorts. “I suppose that answers my question. Experimenting, are we?”

Alex grins too, pulls his knees in to curl up on his sofa. “Who turns down a gift horse like that?” he asks, because he’s seen enough fucking sex crimes pass through his office to have recognized benzos when he saw them being waved around and touted as E, even as Laf had said _what the fuck are those supposed to be_. Alex has never had the opportunity to try them; it’s not the sort of thing anyone he knows takes recreationally to be able to investigate on a whim and so how the hell could he resist the pull to swipe the offending foil from the nervous guy’s limp fingers and bring it home, sit at his kitchen bar and place one careful and light on his tongue, because _why the fuck not, what else was he going to do tonight now._

It was practically a fucking public service of him to take them away, anyway.

If he’s never taken one before then he’s sure as hell never fucked on one, but now he knows he wants to.

He’s done the reading a million times, knows the arousal buzzing under his skin isn’t a side-effect, that it’s all just him, his burning excitement and interest in the learning of it, the sudden sucker-punch of need in his belly and in his balls when he’d gotten through categorizing the physical characteristics and first thought _I wonder-_ overwhelming in it’s intensity and once the idea had struck he’d not been able to let it go, desperately wanted to know what it would _feel_ like. It’s a curious, interesting notion; he’s fuzzy and uncoordinated and his limbs feel a little like highly uncooperative Jell-o and he possibly has about as much strength as a doormouse and he’s never been one for spreading wide and laying prostrate and taking what he’s given but there’s something appealing in the novelty of being bounced like a ragdoll on Thomas’s cock, just the once, just to feel it and _know_ , even if he won’t remember it tomorrow. _Especially_ if he won’t remember it tomorrow. He wonders if Thomas will let him record them fuck so he doesn’t forget all the things he wants to know, like what it would be like to _come_ when he feels like this, whether he even _could_. He wants to know if his muscles are even capable of tensing properly as it builds or if he’ll just feel like a puddle of tingly, sparking, electrified goop that Thomas is holding together with his powerful, filthy hands-

“Oh _really_ now-” Thomas says, slow and careful, in that measured voice he gets when he’s trying in vain not to show that Alex is about to get whatever the fuck he wants, trying to make it sound like he’s at least considering, even though it’s fucking pointless because Alex already knows damn well that he _will_ , and he smiles at his toes. “-you think you can summon me like a cheap whore, Alexander?”

“Quite the opposite, actually, _ma tempête_ ,” Alex hums, tips his head back to regard the ceiling, slips his hand between his legs and hears his breath catch like he’s underwater as he rubs himself idly. “It seemed rather rude _not_ to invite you if I was having a private party. But don’t you worry if you’re busy. I’m sure I can entertain myself-”

“Don’t you fucking dare,” Thomas growls, and Alex laughs, bright and breathless as he slips his fingers lower. “Christ, Alex, you can’t just-”

“Tick tock,” Alex sings. “Hurry the fuck up.”

He hangs up.

~~~

“I fucking love your hands,” Alex pants, forehead-to-sternum into Thomas’s chest, moves his lips over and over again afterward just to taste the light sheen of sweat, damp and shiny on dark skin.

“So you keep saying,” Thomas says into his temple, sounds a little hoarse and a little smug as he fucks up into Alex steadily, uses his grip on Alex to rock him down into the thrusts and _fuck_ , this was a _great_ idea; pleasure sparking persistently up his spine all the way from balls fingertips as he presses them into Thomas’s pecs. He doesn’t really remember making the declaration all that many times, though that doesn’t mean much right now because he’s not even sure how long they’ve been going, feels like five minutes and fifty all at once, time soupy and indiscernible, like those times he’s been awake all night, running on fumes and doesn’t have any reference for the passing of the minutes or hours. 

“It bears repeating,” Alex insists anyway, because it does, can’t muster the energy to lift his head properly to look at him, even though it’s not far, even though Thomas is sat up against the headboard, Alex boneless in his lap, pressed up against him, and while he definitely likes it - he always prefers seeing Thomas to _not_ seeing Thomas when they fuck - he doesn’t quite understand why they’re like this. It seems suboptimal, really, if he can’t move so well right now-

“You got dizzy lying down,” Thomas says patiently, and then; “I love you, darlin’, but I draw the line at you passing out. Besides, this has it’s advantages-” He hitches Alex up and down again so that he gasps and moans at the insistent, hard press inside him.

“Oh - _fuck yes, motherf_ \- oh-okay,” he replies, distracted for a second, torn between the sensation of Thomas angling him just right, hitting him deep and _perfect_ , and the realization that he’s pretty sure he’s missing some things, because short term memory loss is fucking _interesting_. He wants to know how many times they’ve had this conversation; by Thomas’s tone it’s at least once before, maybe more, and has he recorded them? How long did it last? Will this be the one that sticks-

He doesn’t know why the fuck his shoulder hurts; a dull, painful ache when he tries to reach out for his dictaphone - because he can see it right there next to Thomas’s hip, because he’s _fantastic_ , because who the fuck else would let Alex make voice memos in the middle of sex - but he’s got no coordination to actually reach it; ends up throwing his spaghetti-arm out of whack and _oh, ow-_

“Yes, maybe if you stopped fucking flailing around, it wouldn’t hurt,” Thomas bites out, but the way he carefully folds Alex’s arm back into the circle of his own is gentle. Alex slowly understands why Thomas has one hand curled tight around the back of his neck, holding him still, and the other wrapped firmly around his middle, keeping him safe and locked in place as he moves the both of them, Alex’s arms snug between them and he laughs, because it feels like he’s riding a rollercoaster instead of his boyfriend; _please keep your arms and legs inside the carriage at all times_ except Thomas isn’t the rollercoaster, Alex is. Thomas is stable and solid; the safety bar holding him secure so that he doesn’t fall out while he’s soaring and smush against the floor-

“Sweet of you,” Thomas murmurs against his ear, a little gravelly. “We haven’t had that metaphor yet. I like it. I’m starting to think you should take these more often if you’re going to be lovely like this-”

“Shut the fuck up,” Alex says, swats ineffectively at his stomach and he snorts.

“Really are my little kitten, hmm?” he says, and kisses Alex’s neck. Alex can _feel_ the smirk against his skin, surveys what’s in front of him, makes his point by biting down on his left nipple as best he can and Thomas laughs _okay, okay,_ even as he gasps and drags Alex down harder, even as he pulls Alex right up to rest fully against his chest and slips the arm from around his back to reach between them and wrap a hand around him-

“Fuck, _yes, yes_ ,” Alex hisses, can’t get his mouth moving around anything better as his thighs tremble trying to stretch and tense at the stimulation. “ _God_ , Thomas, your hands, _ils se sentent si bien-_ ”

Thomas chuckles weakly into his hair, groans out _that’s it baby, I got you_ and Alex wishes he could have those hands on him all the time. Every fucking minute of every damn day he wants that sure, grounding, revolutionary, _explosive_ touch-

“ _Stop_ ,” Thomas demands, when he desperately tries to reach out to the side again. “Whatever the fuck it is, I’ll remember it for you, alright, don’t hurt yourself-”

“Your _hands_ -” Alex gasps, because it’s super fucking important, because he’s just had the best idea he’d had this entire damn week. This entire _month_ , almost. “I want them on me all the fucking time-”

“That can be arranged,” Thomas growls. “Whenever you want-”

“ _No_ ,” Alex says, but then reconsiders. “I mean - _juste là ne t'arrête pas_ , fuck, Thomas - I mean, _yes_ , obviously. But. I want it _all the time._ That’s it. _That’s_ what I want - the tattoo. Your name and your _hand_ -”

He feels fucking fantastic, _ecstatic_ , because it means he can actually fucking _do it_ now. It’s not been totally perfect; the idea, the design, a blurry, nondescript notion that they both _want_ but can’t pin down and Thomas so badly wants it to be _right_ that they haven’t yet. Alex doesn’t really give a fuck, he’d just wanted it _done_ ; too impatient, too curious, too impulsive but Thomas is better at gaging when these things should be a _big deal_ than Alex is. It throws him off, sometimes, when Thomas looks at him like he’s done something weird; like getting inked, like moving in with him, like it surprises him how easily Alex agrees, except surely he _must_ know there’s no fucking question there, that there’s never gonna be anybody else but him, that Alex would probably implode within the month without him at this point and so Alex doesn’t quite understand.

But in this, at least, Thomas is insistent that his signature isn’t quite _right_ , keeps on saying Alex _isn’t his fucking checkbook_ and that _Alex_ should pick it, that _I don’t give a shit, whatever you want_ isn’t an acceptable answer and _Christ_ , he’s so fucking glad because it’s finally there, solid and absolute and glorious in his mind and _now_ he knows-

“I want you touching me _all the time_ ,” he says again, insistent even as black spots creep in around the edges of his vision and his fingertips tingle and his world narrows down to the feel of Thomas inside him and around him, because he _needs_ Thomas to understand, because if he _forgets_ -

“Jesus, how the fuck do you think I’m going to forget _that_ ,” Thomas groans, tips Alex’s head back to kiss him sloppily, thrusts turned erratic and uncoordinated. “Fuck- that’s- _God_ I fucking love you-”

Alex thinks he maybe does pass out for a second when he comes, the thought still bright and beaming, head spinning dizzy and faint like he’s falling even though he knows he’s not, knows Thomas wouldn’t let him, his entire body a shuddering, twitching, boneless pile of limbs until he’s almost numb with it. He’s pretty sure of it, because he doesn’t register Thomas coming, even though as he blinks from one euphoric second to the next he can suddenly feel Thomas mostly soft and wet between his thighs and there’s a hand stroking calmly through his hair as he breathes shallowly into hard muscle.

“Gonna send that fucking lying-ass sex pest conman of a dealer a fucking fruit basket,” Alex mumbles when he can make his mouth work, can’t even drag his eyes open to glare at Thomas when he snorts, amused. “You _have_ to remember.”

“Baby, there’s no way I’m forgetting that,” Thomas soothes, low and slow, and Alex hums in pleasure when he tugs on his hair a little. “I’ll remind you, if you need it.”

“You still have to pick where,” Alex slurs sleepily, thinks about fighting it but realistically he’s comfy, and warm and can feel Thomas’s huffed breath rhythmically hitting his ear and doesn’t want to give up any of that for the comfort of washing up, because it’s not like he can move properly anyway.

“Here,” Thomas says, and Alex can’t tell whether it’s five seconds or five minutes or an hour later, but he presses where his right hand already sits, and it’s not where Alex would have thought, none of the placed he’d considered, but it’s where it falls naturally, where it settles when Alex is curled in his lap like this more often than not; large enough that it feels like it spans half his fucking side, pinkie above his hip and thumb stroking up to his ribs where Thomas will tap along the ridges of his bones and say _you need to fucking eat something_ and he likes it already. It really will be just like Thomas is holding him all the time.

“Okay,” he yawns, presses his face into Thomas’s neck and inhales sweat and sex and that underlying sweetness he can’t pinpoint the root of but loves all the same. “Perfect.”

~~~

The artist’s hands are cold when she touches Alex, perfunctory and professional when she wipes him down and no more than absolutely necessary and so he doesn’t mind it, because he knows Thomas found her, spent weeks looking for her, met with her, let her photograph his hands to draw from. Alex might have seen it and approved it, the picture to be painted into his skin, but there are still no words for the feeling he gets when she’s transferred the outline of Thomas’s hand, capped off at the cuff with his ridiculous fucking flourish of an autograph, one unbroken line from the wrist through to the end of his name, spread across his side, literally looking like it’s holding him together, and he has to blink a few times at the purple lines in the mirror when she asks _is that okay_ , because it’s already too fucking good and she’s not even _started_ yet. 

He already knows it’ll take two sittings; they’ve already discussed it, because even as eager as Alex is there’s no fucking way he’s going to be able to sit still for longer than a few hours at a time, even though he knows Thomas has paid her more than enough to hire out her whole fucking studio for the entire day anyway to buy their privacy. Even as he waits for her to _get the fuck on with it_ his toes wave restless and repetitive in the air and Thomas has to lay an unusually-shaky hand over his bare stomach to settle his twitching impatience, his eyes dark and intent and fervid enough as they watch him that Alex is already half hard even before the first lance of pain along his side and when it comes he knows he won’t last more than a few hours anyway, impatience or no, because _shit_.

The needle is the worst and best kind of tease all at once; feels so much like his skin is being carved open, so much like when Thomas takes a blade to him that it drives him completely insane that there’s no answering slow drip, because that’s the _best bit._ That’s the bit he craves and the deprivation of it leaves him wanting and strung out and desperately waiting for the sluggish, lazy drag of his blood; wet and cool to the open air as it pools underneath him but it doesn’t come, and it doesn’t come and it _doesn’t come_ and he has to squeeze his eyes closed and fist the perfect pressed straightness of Thomas’s sleeve beside him to keep from arching helplessly up into it and asking her to stop wiping and just _let it fucking bleed_.

He doesn’t know if he’s _that_ desperately obvious - he can’t be the first person to sit through a tattoo session hard enough to hammer nails - or whether Thomas has just paid her _that_ much money, but he’s glad of it either way by the end of the session because she’s discrete enough to secure his film bandage with lowered eyes and then melt away into a back room and the second the door _snicks_ firmly shut behind her he flings himself shamelessly at Thomas because fuck, _fuck_ , he needs to be _touched_.

It’s okay, though, he doesn’t feel so humiliatingly needy a second later because Thomas yanks him in hard before he’s even halfway, kisses him like a starving man and groans into his mouth at the pressure of Alex in his lap, frantic, fervent hands under his remaining clothes until Alex has scrabbling nails dug into his shoulder blades while Thomas opens him up with the leftover Vaseline that isn’t smeared up his side.

“You can have a shorter session next time if you like. You can have fucking half an hour at a time until it's done if that's what you want,“ Thomas kisses into his neck, bares his teeth and bites his appreciation into Alex’s skin, and the pain in his side makes it feel like he has three of Thomas’s hands on him; one digging into the center of his back, one spread over his ribs, one pressing insistent fingers into him and _no_ , because he wants it _done_ , because he’s not a fucking pussy and because if it hadn’t lasted _that_ long this wouldn’t feel _this_ good.

“No, _no_ ,” Alex grins wildly, fists Thomas’s hair and pushes back hard into his hand. “No, it’s perfect.”

“ _You’re_ perfect,” Thomas tells him, before he bends Alex over the chair he’s just vacated and fucks him until he cries out, until he’s digging hard fingers into soft, spongy leather, until they both feel calmer, though Alex doesn’t feel fully sated until a few hours later when Thomas gives him what he’s really craving as he cuts into Alex’s thighs; face down and pushing back into it so keenly that Thomas has to press down on the small of his back, bruising-firm to keep from going too deep. It’s only when Thomas is leaving warm, sticky, red prints over the rest of him that the churning restlessness inside his chest and his gut finally ebbs and quells. Thomas’s hands are sure and steady as he grips tight; coated and covered in Alex as much as Alex wants to be covered in him and he closes his eyes against the sight for a second until he’s got a handle on the urge to ask for those prints permanently _everywhere_ , because if he starts down that train he know he’ll never stop, never draw the line because he doesn’t know _how_.

It’s only even later than that, when he’s showered and squeaky clean, on all fours while Thomas presses his lips to the curve of his ass and disinfects his legs with careful fingers, that he’s steady enough to look down and remind himself that they’re _already_ almost-permanently there; purple-brown mottled impressions of Thomas’s hands and mouth along his hips and the tops of his thighs, around his wrists and up his neck, bruises pressed deep into his skin.

He wonders if Thomas has purposefully picked a place for his tattoo that’s harder to bruise up, bonier and more tender and more likely to actually _hurt._ Alex wouldn’t mind it if it _did_ , but he thinks Thomas probably would. He’s like that, especially lately; he’d not even been certain Thomas would indulge him in this, because he’s not done it since _the incident_ and it wasn’t that many weeks ago that Alex had gashed his hand open on a broken glass; Thomas stunned momentarily silent and frozen at the sight of his blood dripping bright onto light stone tiles, too much and too soon but thankfully Thomas mitigates fear and uncertainty through meticulous control, and so maybe that’s the difference; there’s no need for concern when it’s his own sure, confident hands meting out the wounds.

Alex is in complete agreement. He never worries about anything when Thomas is touching him. 

“You know,” Thomas murmurs later into the dark, half-asleep, Alex curled up against him, and being here permanently is new enough that it’s still weird, even though he’s never slept better in his life than he does in Thomas’s bed; just another thing to add to the list of things that are better when Thomas is touching him. “S’not gonna look the same when you get old and fat.”

“Fuck you,” Alex mutters, and tries to ignore the sicky feeling in his chest, because he’s never actually legitimately believed he’ll get that far. Never planned for it. Doesn’t consider it, just makes the most of what he has and what he can and doesn’t think beyond that. Even now there’s Thomas - _maybe especially now there’s Thomas, because they both thrive on that danger too much_ \- he still can’t fathom it as a viable possibility for either of them. “You’d be old and fat too, asshole, so it’d still be real fucking accurate.”

Thomas huffs _oh yeah, okay_ like he hasn’t noticed Alex speaking in the hypothetical and snuffles into his hair and Alex lets himself think about it, just for a second before he resolutely shuts it down; lets himself believe that he can trust Thomas to get them both there, to a point that the idea of _retiring somewhere quiet_ doesn’t immediately make him want to slit his own throat, because he thinks something like that might drive them both entirely insane.

But maybe if Thomas is touching him the whole time it might be worth it.

~~~

He’s less caught off-guard two weeks later when he sits for the second session; has a little more discipline over his physical reaction, partly because he knows what to expect now, is more prepared for the way his toes curl with each stroke, but more so because he’s impatient to the point of complete distraction. He can’t even focus on the sensation of it when he’s too fucking itchy knowing it will be _finished_ , too excited to _see_ it, because he’s barely fucking looked at it for the last fortnight, hasn’t wanted to see it half-done and incomplete.

Thomas has rolled his eyes each and every time he’s had to apply the cream while Alex looks studiously away, but he’s humored him anyway.

The artist looks like she’s humoring him too, lips twitching as she wipes him down, as he looks expectantly at her and bounces in the chair until she says _okay, you’re good,_ until he can scramble over to the mirror to see it properly, until he can turn and see the delight burning bright on Thomas's face.

It’s flawless; a perfect recreation of his right hand flowing through to his scrawling signature, haphazard and lax, even though Thomas had drawn it out carefully, seemingly hundreds of times, wanting it _just right_ because he’s a fucking perfectionist, until Alex had thrown every single one of them in the fire and swiped one of Thomas’s checks for her to go off instead, because the callback was too good to resist and because despite what he keeps saying, Thomas _has_ him just as completely as every other damn thing he possesses and whether it should or not, that casual ownership turns Alex inside out.

He’d wanted _that_ captured on him and it is; that self-assured, confident arrogance bleeding out of every lazy, messy loop like Thomas can’t be bothered to even write properly, a physical representation of his slow, careless drawl and _that_ makes it perfect because it’s _real._

~~~

He can't leave it alone. Can’t stop _touching it,_ even as Thomas _tsks_ and slaps his hands away for days afterward to keep from getting an infection. Until it’s healed, at least, and then _Thomas_ can’t fucking stop touching it either, lays his hand over it and pushes down onto Alex hard as he pushes _into_ Alex hard, and when he moves it away Alex feels like Thomas has pressed it right into his fucking body and into his soul and imprinted himself there, signed it like Alex is wet concrete at that fucking Chinese Theater and he bursts out laughing until Thomas huffs and hoists a leg up over his shoulder and all his laughter turns to garbled curses.

It’s something Thomas takes to doing, though; stroking over it, covering it when Alex crawls into his lap, so often and already so natural that he doesn’t even need to look, just slips his hand beneath his shirt and rests it there and Alex just knows it’s spot on and he can’t stop from sighing and arching into it every time. Thomas likes that.

He thinks Thomas maybe likes to feel like he’s leaving an imprint each time Alex has to crawl off of him, too.

Alex also can’t stop touching the bruises on his right hip, where those finger-marks curl around him, or pressed into his ass, or around the meat of his thigh, breath hitching and pulse fluttering high in his throat.

Because, well-

Thomas has more than one hand, after all. 

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:  
> \- tu me comprends, mon petit feu / you understand me, my little fire  
> \- ma tempête / my storm  
> \- ils se sentent si bien- / they feel so good  
> \- juste là ne t'arrête pas / just there don't stop
> 
> [This is unrealistic fiction, please don't do any of it.]  
> [Well, get tattooed if you like, that's fun. Though don't expect it to get you off, it hurts like a motherfucker.]
> 
> {Title from lyrics from - Hands on me by Ariana Grande}


End file.
